by Vesper K. Thorne
Title: To Feed a Tyrant's Core (The Rift Era: Book 1) He needs her power to survive. She needs his mercy to save her family. But in the city of broken neon, mercy comes with an obsidian collar. In the floating Citadel above the toxic Rift, Commander Kaelen is known as the pure white savior-and the most cold-blooded military dictator in the upper world. But behind his flawless uniform lies a deadly, decaying secret: his cybernetic military core is fractured, bleeding volatile dark energy that threatens to tear him apart. Linnea is a nobody from the mud below, a scavenger girl marked by forbidden lavender veins that can drain and purify corrupted power. When a desperate gamble brings her face-to-face with the dying commander, her touch doesn't just save his life-it binds them in a dangerous, addictive symbiosis. To save her mother from the Rift sickness, Linnea signs a lawless pact with the devil. Dressed in liquid obsidian and wearing his mark around her neck, she is dragged into high-society ballrooms as the tyrant's secret shadow. As political treachery erupts into a full-scale civil war, Kaelen's icy control shatters into a possessive, unstable madness. He will burn the floating city to the ground to keep his little bird caged. But when the lines between master and savior blur, who will destroy whom first? 🔥 WHAT TO EXPECT: Enemies-to-Lovers / Forced Proximity Ruthless Alpha Male (Who is secretly obsessed with her) Badass Dystopian Heroine High-Concept Sci-Fi Fantasy Romance (Spicy Content Inside)
